Transaction tracking and display

ABSTRACT

A transaction tracking system includes a display that permits viewing the relationship between related transactions. In the display, individual transactions are depicted as transaction icons sorted in time order horizontal rows according to order ID.

PRIOR APPLICATION DATA

The present application is a continuation of prior application Ser. No.16/205,531, entitled “TRANSACTION TRACKING AND DISPLAY”, filed Nov. 30,2018, which in turn is a continuation of prior application Ser. No.14/708,971, filed May 11, 2015, entitled “TRANSACTION TRACKING ANDDISPLAY”, each of which incorporated herein by reference in itsentirety.

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION

Financial firms are responsible for ensuring that traders maintainintegrity in the markets. This is a complicated, time-sensitivechallenge that entails analyzing large amounts of structured andunstructured market, trading and communications data. Compliancedepartments use the results of the analysis to monitor for potentialmarket abuse or manipulation by traders. Occasionally, the results ofthe analysis will generate an alert that will prompt furtherinvestigation into trader activity. When an investigation occurs, usersneed to swiftly understand the sequence of orders and executedtransactions, how the instruments were traded, where the transactionsoccurred, the relationship of the trades to account owners, whatcommunication was associated with the transactions, and otherinformation relevant to the trade.

Conventionally, information relating to transactions has been displayedeither in textual grid format or in a time-dependent graph. A grid hasprimarily text content, for example, a specific transaction ID alignedwith related transaction information in columnar format. This allowselements to be sorted by a single dimension only. In contrast, a graphformat typically displays, for example, price fluctuation as a functionof time, and may allow hovering over a specific transaction to displayadditional transaction information. However, neither of theseconventional display formats shows all transactions associated with aspecific alert, with the sequence and relationship between them.

U.S. Pat. No. 8,438,089 describes a method and apparatus for transactionverification which includes matching transaction details with a recordof communications between parties regarding a transaction event. In thesystem, alerts may be generated to flag a transaction based on amatching score comparing the transaction record with the details of thetransaction. However, heretofore there has not been a system oftransaction tracking which permits a view of transactions relating to analert (or other criteria) that shows the relationship between thetransactions. The disclosure of U.S. Pat. No. 8,438,089 is incorporatedby reference.

SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION

Thus, an object of the invention is to allow an investigator to trackrelated transactions in a visual format.

Another object of the invention is to sort transactions and createalerts based on predetermined criteria, and then display transactionsrelated to the alert to facilitate identification of suspiciousactivity.

This object is achieved according to the invention, in one aspect, witha method of tracking and displaying transactions, in which transactionsdata is loaded along with identifying metadata associated with thetransactions data, including transaction type metadata (whether an orderor an execution), order identification metadata (“order ID”), customertype metadata, and triggering transaction metadata. The transactions aresorted by time-stamp and then placed on a display by iteratively (a)creating a new sequence line on a display for each unique order ID; and(b) placing the orders in time-stamp order on the created sequence line.For each execution, the same process is repeated, i.e., iteratively (a)creating a new sequence line on a display for each unique orderidentification; and (b) placing the executions in time-stamp order onthe sequence line. The transactions identified as triggeringtransactions according to predetermined criteria are marked; and foreach sequence line the percentage of orders executed on the sequenceline is calculated and displayed.

A system for transaction tracking according to the invention includes adisplay which provides information from related transactions. Thedisplay includes a horizontal time axis so that each position on thehorizontal time axis denotes a unique sequential time of a transaction;and a vertical transaction relationship axis representing transactioninformation, so that vertically separated rows are identified by uniqueorder identification information. In the display, a plurality oftransaction icons, each icon representing a single transaction, ispositioned in at least one row on the display.

In particular embodiments, the transaction icons each have the samewidth in the first axis and the same height in the second axis, and arepositioned in rows on the display in time-stamp order, with each rowcorresponding to a unique order ID, which permits a “birds-eye-view” ofa set of transactions that are related to a triggering transactionaccording to an alert. The triggering transaction may be identified, andother information including transaction type information, orderidentification information, and customer type information may beincluded in the display next to the transaction icons or next to thesequence rows.

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS

The subject matter regarded as the invention is particularly pointed outand distinctly claimed in the concluding portion of the specification.The invention, however, both as to organization and method of operation,together with objects, features, and advantages thereof, may best beunderstood by reference to the following detailed description when readwith the accompanying drawings in which:

FIG. 1 is a schematic illustration of a system for transaction tracking,according to an embodiment of the invention;

FIG. 2 is a flowchart of a method of transaction tracking and display,according to an embodiment of the invention; and

FIG. 3 is a graphic depicting a sample display generated according to anembodiment of the invention.

It will be appreciated that for simplicity and clarity of illustration,elements shown in the figures have not necessarily been drawn to scale.For example, the dimensions of some of the elements may be exaggeratedrelative to other elements for clarity. Further, where consideredappropriate, reference numerals may be repeated among the figures toindicate corresponding or analogous elements.

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE PRESENT INVENTION

In the following detailed description, numerous specific details are setforth in order to provide a thorough understanding of the invention.However, it will be understood by those skilled in the art that thepresent invention may be practiced without these specific details. Inother instances, well-known methods, procedures, and components have notbeen described in detail so as not to obscure the present invention.

Unless specifically stated otherwise, as apparent from the followingdiscussions, it is appreciated that throughout the specificationdiscussions utilizing terms such as “processing,” “computing,”“calculating,” “determining,” or the like, refer to the action and/orprocesses of a computer or computing system, or similar electroniccomputing device, that manipulates and/or transforms data represented asphysical, such as electronic, quantities within the computing system'sregisters and/or memories into other data similarly represented asphysical quantities within the computing system's memories, registers orother such information storage, transmission or display devices.

The specification and claims make reference to a “display,” which refersto the ordering of visual information on a physical display such as acomputer screen, a tablet screen, a mobile device screen, or the like.Display “outputs” means signals representing graphical outputs directedto the display device. Therefore, the display, the display outputs andthe display device are closely related concepts, as the display cannotexist without the display device and the display outputs. It will beunderstood by the person of ordinary skill in the art that theorganization of information in a Graphical User Interface (GUI) is notan organization of abstract ideas but of physical elements on thedisplay. And the selection and organization of elements in a display isnot a theoretical exercise, but is limited by available data and theability to process them. An important aspect of the invention is theamount and quality of the information available in a single view, whichis a transformative use of the underlying data.

FIG. 1 depicts the architecture of the system of the invention. Thearchitecture is divided into data layer 101, processing layer 102 andinvestigation layer 103. Data layer 101 includes client/source data,including for example market data 104, reference data 105, and datarelating to individual transactions 106 loaded from multiple datasources to one or more Enterprise Trade Surveillance (ETS) databases108, 110, 112, 114. These data may include trade or order information,and may describe transaction parameters such as customer ID, trader ID,price, transaction subject (e.g. trade, swap, option), amount, currency,or other relevant parameters, including alert-related data used forinvestigation, tuning and reporting, as well as ETS configurations andsettings and profiles data required for detection rules.

Transaction information includes time-stamp information, transactiontype information, order identification information and customer typeinformation, and may include other information relevant to a transactionor an alert. Time stamp information permits each transaction to berepresented on a horizontal axis according to the temporal sequence ofevents. Order identification information permits the transaction iconsto be positioned in rows according to unique orders. A unique order ischaracterized by the intent of a party or entity to perform atransaction with respect to a property. For example, a customer may wishto buy a certain number of securities shares at a specific price. Thismay result in one or more orders and one or more executions may berequired to effectuate the customer's intent. The initial order may beamended as to price and/or quantity in the course of dealing. However,all of these transactions may have the same unique order identification(“order ID”), and may thus appear on a single horizontal row in thesequence view. In contrast, trades by different parties or entities, ormade with respect to different properties, generally may not have thesame order ID, so that such transactions would appear on different rows.

Other relevant information may be included in the data layer 101 andreflected in the ultimate view(s). Other relevant information includes,without limitation, communications data, such as the communicationsbetween a trader and a customer relating to a transaction, as describedin the aforesaid U.S. Pat. No. 8,438,089 for example. Data from newsfeeds, and the like, may also be included for the purpose of identifyingsuspicious activity, making an alert, and this data may be furtherincluded in a display, in addition to the elements of the sequence viewdescribed herein.

Client source data are loaded into Unified Data Manager (UDM) 116through the (Extract/Transform/Load) ETL/flat files 122, 124. Data fromthe Financial Data Model (FDM) 120 is loaded into the UDM with a TradeSurveillance Connector 126.

Profiles database 112 may include summaries of past transactional andevent data. For example, profile information may include average accountbalance, number of check returns, reference data (e.g., addresses, phonenumber, number of employees) and identifying data (e.g., indices).

Above the data layer 101 conceptually is the processing layer 102 wheremost systems processes are performed. A data load module 130 loadsrelevant data from the UDM 116 for processing by detection rules whichare configured to identify triggering transactions and to create alerts.A profiling module 140 manages transaction data into profiles. TC-4Alerts Ingestion 160 parses and loads alerts and related data, whichpermits the application of rules in detection logic 170 to createalerts. The issues or alerts detected in the detection logic 170 aredistributed to the risk case manager (RCM) 180.

Above the processing layer 102 is investigation layer 103 where thedisplay and GUI are evident to the user. The modules within theinvestigation layer may include: reports module 132, which computesstatistics about work items, workload and other activities; an alertdetail 139 which depicts the results of an alert; a policy managermodule 134 which computes user-defined detection rules to determinewhether an alert should be generated; ETS settings module 136 whichdefines common thresholds, specific thresholds per rule, and ruleinstances, as well as include/exclude lists configured at the systemlevel for a specific rule. Alert graph module 138 and consolidated viewsmodule 142 present the formatted display, such as described below in asequence view embodiment according to FIG. 3.

As known in the art, some or all of components of the data layer,processing layer and investigation layer comprise software executed onone or more processors on different computing devices, or they may bepart of the same centralized system or server, sharing processing andmemory units, or executed by multiple processors or memory units. Any orall processor(s) may include, for example, a central processing unit(CPU), a digital signal processor (DSP), a microprocessor, a controller,a chip, a microchip, an integrated circuit (IC), or any other suitablemulti-purpose or specific processor or controller and memory unit(s),such as a random access memory (RAM), a dynamic RAM (DRAM), a flashmemory, a volatile memory, a non-volatile memory, a cache memory, abuffer, a short term memory unit, a long term memory unit, or othersuitable memory units or storage units.

Transaction information includes different categories of informationthat assist with tracking a transaction, and in particular tracking arelationship between transactions and creating alerts. The differentcategories of transaction information include: transaction typeinformation, which indicates whether a particular order is a new order,an amended order or a canceled order; customer type information, whichindicates whether a customer placing an order is a broker, an employee,or if the trade is a proprietary trade; transaction type informationwhich indicates whether the order is an order or an execution; andbuy/sell information, which indicates whether the order is a buy orderor a sell order. Other types of transaction information may be includedas metadata summarizing the different categories of transactioninformation relating to a transaction loaded into the system. Themetadata may also indicate whether the transaction is a triggeringtransaction.

An embodiment of the method for tracking and displaying transactionsaccording to the invention is described in FIG. 2, in which transactionsidentified as suspicious according to a specific alert are loaded intothe system. In a first step, the transactions and associated metadataare loaded in module 201. Transactions are buy orders, sell orders, andcorresponding buy order executions and sell order executions.Identifying metadata associated with the transactions includestransaction type metadata, for example, the time-stamp, whether thetransaction is an order or an execution; and whether the order orexecution is on the buy side or the sell side of the transaction.Identifying metadata may include customer type metadata, whether thecustomer is a broker, employee or proprietor conducting proprietarytrades. Identifying metadata may identify the transaction type as “new”,“amended” or “canceled”. Identifying metadata also identify particulartransactions with a “triggering transaction identifier”.

The transactions loaded in module 201 are identified within an alertdescribing a particular model of suspicious activity. The modelidentifies a triggering transaction and related transactions accordingto the model. For example, Off Market Trading (OMT) identifies firmtransactions not executed at market price which may have an impact onpublished reference prices. The triggering transaction in this case willbe the last execution executed at a price different from the marketprice. The present invention is primarily involved with sorting anddisplaying such transactions, rather than in the details of identifyingthe transactions according to a model.

Once the transactions, the related metadata and the triggeringtransaction identifier are loaded; the transactions are sorted bytime-stamp at 202. The transactions sorted by time stamp are sorted intoorders and executions at 203. For each order, it is determined at 204whether the order ID of that order has been placed in the display. Ifthe order ID is unique, i.e., has not been placed in the display, ahorizontal sequence line is created at 206. For orders having an orderID that already appears in the display, the order is placed intime-stamp order on the sequence line at 205. The same procedure isfollowed for execution orders at 207, determining whether the order IDof the execution is present on the display, and then, iteratively, (a)creating a new sequence line for each unique order ID at 209; and (b)placing the executions in time-stamp order on the sequence line at 208.At 210, if the transaction is a triggering transaction, it is so markedat 211. When all of the loaded transactions have been processed in thismanner, the percentage of orders that were executed for each order ID iscalculated.

The advantages of sorting the transaction information in this unique wayare evident from FIG. 3, wherein each transaction of the same type inthe display is depicted as a transaction icon 301 having the same heightand width. The form and color of the transaction icons 301 are variableso that each transaction icon graphically identifies the transaction asa buy order, a buy execution, a sell order or a sell execution, based ondistinct color and graphic content. In the embodiment of FIG. 3 all ofthe transaction icons 301 have the same size. While it may be desirableto have transaction icons on the horizontal sequence lines withdifferent sizes, in a presently preferred embodiment for visual impact,the transaction icons have the same vertical height and horizontalwidth. In FIG. 3, a legend appears on the top of the display showing howthe similarly sized transaction icons depict the transaction type withdifferent form and color of the icon. Each transaction is placed on ahorizontal row based on its time stamp.

The transaction icons 301 are arranged in time-stamp sequence onhorizontal rows or sequence lines 302 corresponding to a unique orderID. A graphic 303 depicting the number of orders corresponding to anorder ID and a percentage of orders that were executed for that order IDmay be depicted next to the sequence line 302. This graphic 303 willdepict how much of an order was filled and what is left to be filled,this will be important in the compliance context for understanding ifthe order is fictitious or has the intent to be fulfilled. The overallnumber of related transactions is depicted in another graphic box 304,which refers to all transactions that participated in the logic of themodel. So, for example, in the OMT model described above, this would bea number of transactions executed in a given time window for a specificaccount and product. In the embodiment of FIG. 3, a customer type label305 is provided next to each horizontal bar representing a unique orderID. In the example of FIG. 3, this information is representedimmediately below the respective sequence line. A customer typeincludes, without limitation, “broker-dealer”, “customer”, ‘employee”and “proprietary”. Similarly, transaction type information indicatingwhether the transaction is a new, amended or canceled transaction isprovided in the form of a graphic 306 immediately above or below thetransaction icon, in the case of FIG. 3, immediately above thetransaction icon 301.

Alerts are configured to identify transactions or sets of transactionsthat are of interest to an investigator. Another example of tradingactivity that would be of interest to an investigator is so-called“front running” a practice of market makers of dealing on advanceinformation before their clients have been given the information. In theexample of FIG. 3, a single transaction is identified as the triggeringtransaction with a label 307 on the display. Thus in FIG. 3, an alertfor front running is depicted with a single triggering transaction andthe different related transactions positioned in time sequence andseparated vertically according to unique order ID. This “sequence view”offers a unique perspective on this information not available in theprior art.

While certain features of the invention have been illustrated anddescribed herein, many modifications, substitutions, changes, andequivalents will now occur to those of ordinary skill in the art. It is,therefore, to be understood that the appended claims are intended tocover all such modifications and changes as fall within the true spiritof the invention.

What is claimed is:
 1. A method of tracking and displaying transactions,comprising: loading transactions related to an alert including onetriggering transaction into a software module running on a processor;identifying metadata associated with the transactions, includingtransaction type metadata, order identification metadata, customer typemetadata, and triggering transaction metadata; sorting the transactionsby time-stamp; sorting the transactions sorted by time stamp into ordertransactions and execution transactions; for each order transaction,iteratively, (a) creating a new sequence line on a display for eachunique order identification; and (b) placing each order transaction intime-stamp order on a sequence line corresponding to the unique orderidentification; for each execution transaction, iteratively, (a)creating a new sequence line on the display for each unique orderidentification; and (b) placing each execution transaction in time-stamporder on a sequence line corresponding to the unique orderidentification; and marking the triggering transaction on the display.2. The method according to claim 1, comprising positioning a transactionicon representing a single transaction in a sequence line on thedisplay.
 3. The method according to claim 2, comprising positioningtransaction type information immediately over each transaction icon. 4.The method according to claim 2, wherein the display includestransaction type information next to each transaction icon.
 5. Themethod according to claim 2, wherein the transaction icon graphicallyidentifies the associated transaction as a buy order, a buy execution, asell order or a sell execution based on distinct color and graphiccontent.
 6. The method according to claim 1, wherein the transactiontype metadata indicates whether the transaction is a new, amended orcanceled transaction.
 7. The method according to claim 1, comprisingplacing a customer type label next to each sequence line, the customertype label indicating a customer type selected from broker-dealer,customer, employee and proprietary.
 8. The method according to claim 7,wherein the customer type label is positioned immediately below eachsequence line.
 9. The method according to claim 1 comprising for eachsequence line calculating a percentage of orders executed of totalorders on the sequence line and displaying the percentage.
 10. A systemfor tracking and displaying transactions, the system comprising: adisplay screen displaying transaction information from relatedtransactions; and a server comprising a processor configured to: loadtransactions related to an alert including one triggering transaction;identify metadata associated with the transactions, includingtransaction type metadata, order identification metadata, customer typemetadata, and triggering transaction metadata; sort the transactions bytime-stamp; sort the transactions sorted by time stamp into ordertransactions and execution transactions; for each order transaction,iteratively, (a) create a new sequence line on the display screen foreach unique order identification; and (b) place each order transactionin time-stamp order on a sequence line corresponding to the unique orderidentification; for each execution transaction, iteratively, (a) createa new sequence line on the display screen for each unique orderidentification; and (b) place each execution transaction in time-stamporder on a sequence line corresponding to the unique orderidentification; and mark the triggering transaction on the displayscreen.
 11. The system according to claim 10, wherein the processor isconfigured to position a transaction icon representing a singletransaction in a sequence line on the display.
 12. The system accordingto claim 11, wherein the processor is configured to position transactiontype information immediately over each transaction icon.
 13. The systemaccording to claim 11, wherein the display screen includes transactiontype information next to each transaction icon.
 14. The system accordingto claim 11, wherein the transaction icon graphically identifies theassociated transaction as a buy order, a buy execution, a sell order ora sell execution based on distinct color and graphic content.
 15. Thesystem according to claim 10, wherein the transaction type metadataindicates whether the transaction is a new, amended or canceledtransaction.
 16. The system according to claim 10, wherein the processoris configured to place a customer type label next to each sequence line,the customer type label indicating a customer type selected frombroker-dealer, customer, employee and proprietary.
 17. The systemaccording to claim 16, wherein the customer type label is positionedimmediately below each sequence line.
 18. The system according to claim10 wherein the processor is configured to for each sequence linecalculate a percentage of orders executed of total orders on thesequence line and display the percentage.
 19. A method, comprising:identifying metadata associated with transactions related to an alert,including transaction type metadata, order identification metadata,customer type metadata, and triggering transaction metadata; sorting thetransactions into order transactions and execution transactions; createa horizontal time axis; for each order transaction, iteratively, (a)creating a new sequence line on a display for each unique orderidentification; and (b) placing each order transaction in time-stamporder on a sequence line corresponding to the unique orderidentification; for each execution transaction, iteratively, (a)creating a new sequence line on the display for each unique orderidentification; and (b) placing each execution transaction in time-stamporder on a sequence line corresponding to the unique orderidentification; and marking the triggering transaction on the display.20. The method according to claim 19, comprising positioning atransaction icon representing a single transaction in a sequence line onthe display.
 21. The method according to claim 19, comprising placing acustomer type label next to each sequence line, the customer type labelindicating a customer type selected from broker-dealer, customer,employee and proprietary.
 22. The method according to claim 19, whereinthe customer type label is positioned immediately below each sequenceline.
 23. The method according to claim 19 comprising for each sequenceline calculating a percentage of orders executed of total orders on thesequence line and displaying the percentage.